Three years before the Stonewall Riots in New York, LGBTQ people in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco had had enough with police harassment. Trans women were frequently arrested, but a cafeteria named Compton's served as a safe space where LGBTQ residents could live openly and peacefully. Unfortunately, the management at Compton's didn't want to gain a reputation as a place where drag queens and trans women were accepted, so they would call the police to clear out the cafeteria at night. After a police officer began to harass a drag queen, she fought back. She dumped coffee on him and a riot quickly started. While this riot is much less well known as the Stonewall riots, the actions taken there were important, and kickstarted a movement of resistance to the harassment and abuse of LGBTQ citizens. More actions were taken to try to advocate for better treatment. People picketed the White House, city halls, and places where discriminatory actions took place. After a restaurant in Philadelphia refused to serve gay customers, a sit in of over a hundred and fifty people was organized. The restaurant called the police to have the protesters arrested, but the police decided that they didn't have the authority to arrest anyone. The restaurant gave into the demands of the protesters to stop discriminating against LGBTQ patrons. Additionally, many activists were able to join forces with other marginalized groups in order to protest against police harassment and injustice.
https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/philadelphian-gay-rights-activists-stage-first-sit-deweys-restaurant-1965
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/05/05/404459634/ladies-in-the-streets-before-stonewall-transgender-uprising-changed-lives
Brooke, this was a very well written and informative post! I thought that it was interesting that one of the first movements for LGBTQ rights took place in San Francisco, a city that is still well know for being very accepting. I did some further research into the actions of police in this area at the time I found that police would abuse the drag queens and others who frequented Compton's and that this eventually led to the riot that took place in 1966. Thanks for such a great post!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/05/05/404459634/ladies-in-the-streets-before-stonewall-transgender-uprising-changed-lives
This is a very well written and concise post Brooke! I never knew that the stonewall riots were what started the LGBTQ movement to stand up for their rights to be accepted. This really hits home for me since so many of my friends identify as LGBTQ, and I cannot even imagine how awful it would be to be harassed for their feelings in today's world, especially id these riots never happened. Great work!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nytimes.com/topic/subject/stonewall-rebellion here is some further research about this that I found pretty interesting!
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